ALWAYS TWO OR MORE WAYS TO LOOK AT ANYTHING

Our thoughts are the things that allow us to interpret and recognize experiences. Our stomach aches, we get a signal and then our brain says, hey, my stomch aches. Yet what comes first, the thought, or the experience? When we become mind centric we often make the mistake of thinking that our thoughts are the only things we should be paying attention to. Not that we shouldn't, it's just that they are the result, the outcome of any experience. To this, there is a highly evolved notion, one that drives many yogis and monks, which is to emphasize energy over thought, and then let that energy guide our thinking, teaching us how to manage our thoughts.

If there was one thing that separates and awakened and aware person from one who is not-so-awake, it is that a wise person is always focusing on the energy of things. They are letting energy reveal the story of what is going on. Whereas the not-so-wise person is focused on the thoughts, distractions and confusion that often come from failing to understand the energy behind a given thing. Unless we grow up as a monk or yogi, we are rarely taught to see life in terms of energy in our youth. We are taught to see life through the eyes of thought and emotion, through cultural stereotypes and accepted notions of thinking. And then, when the wheels start to fall off of the way we pereive life, we finally revisit these notions and increasingly start to realize that our lives are all boil down to time and energy. In fact, the older we get, the more valuable our energy becomes and life demands we own this view of life. And there are many, hanging on to youth, who squander their energy thinking that is a sign they are not getting old, when they are just accelerating their aging by denying this fundamental truth.

To embrace energy as the core of our existence and well being can make us seem like cosmic or lofty people to others, perhaps even aloof or unconcerned, even if our feet are firmly on the ground. Managing energy as the precious jewel of our existence is the great secret of life, and should we dare to embrace such a thing, we have a challenging art to put to work, as there are those who love to squander the energy of others. Perhaps we are one of them? We do not rule the world of energy, as we all should know. We simply participate in it.

To speak to energy, we must be cautious, as life is filled with things that misuse energy, and sometimes we have little leverage in that challenge. This is the challenge of many traumatized childhoods, the inability to protect and wisely use our energy. It is part of history that humans use and abuse the energy of others. If you want an answer, it is simply the nature of things. Our highest states of awareness can lead us to the heart of our reltaionship with energy. As enlightening as that may be, it still leaves us with a lifetime of understanding how to use and manage our energy within the human vessels we are, relative to others and the archetypes they express. Cosmic, yes, but who can argue? When we take the energy view of life, we can take the personal nature out of many things, and begin to watch the chemistry of things, the story of how and how and why things use energy A story we all have.

Of course, we have our practical selves, our very human selves with our names, faces, pasts, our costumes, and whatever we have come to understand as being our personal expressions. Yet at our core, beneath it all, we will always be, fundmentally, energy passing through a physcial body. Having our higher wisdom, as cosmic as it may seem, yet feeling comfortable in our human skin, managing our emotions, careers, physical health, and of course, our relationships, this is the complete self we all apsire to manage with wisdom.

ENERGY AND WISDOM

IWe can think energy and wisdom are two different things, and they are, however they are bound to each other. This is why we often think more clearly when we have healthy energy. You see, wisdom is relative to what we are going through and the amount of energy we have to expend. If we are low on energy, our wisdom asks us to create energy or to do things that require a low level of energy. Energized we are drawn to express that energy in a more rewarding manner. Yet, if we throw our energy willy nilly into life, what happens? LIfe uses our energy however it sees fit and this is where wisdom comes back into the pitcure. The foolish in life are happy to live lives low on energy. The wise let their energy take them to the school of life. So, we need energy to summon our wisdom. Our wisdom needs a reason to be summoned. This is a primal call as old as we are. The creation of energy and then the search for the wisdom to wisely use our energy. This again reveals the importance of wisdom. It is wisdom that allows us to protect our energy, to maintain it, to manage it. In the same way that love slips through our fingers without wisdom, so too does our purest energy, our chi, our source of life.

A person who is awake creates good energy, summons that energy and then they ask that energy to guide them to wisdom. Sometimes that wisdom is a test. Rememeber many of our lessons in energy management are about us squandering our energy until we figure out how to use it wisely. So wisdom can take us into tests, places in which we waste energy so that we can check those off the list as things that squander our energy. Watsed energy can be a painful thing as we find energy is hard to creae and maintain, a cause to give up on energy. In these cases we lick our wounds and head back to wisdom. Wisdom is still there with or without the energy.

HOW THIS PRACTICE SPEAKS TO ENERGY

It is impossible to speak to life and not speak to energy. Fortunately, in cultures that have long embraced such things, there are many languages that help us understand the interplay of energy we must work with. Energy, like fuel for a car, or water for a plant, is nothing in and of itself. We can stare at fires, or into lakes endlessly, but our job is to wisely put the elements to work. A lot of times when our energy is low, it is simply that we haven;t figured out how to wisely use our best energy, something we must often, if not always, earn. Energy crashes when it doesn't know what to do with itself. I never teach from a place that demands our highest energy. It is more nd why? Where should it be? For a yogi, a refined level of very high energy is critical to their existence. Not for everyone. There is a great responsibility required to mainatin anything, especially our best energy. So, we need to know who we are as systems, because it is ultimately the system that we are that allows us to cultibvate and use our good energy in a given manner. As cosmic as our best energy can feel, it is our uncosmic self that defines the wisdom we express relative to the use of our energy. This is our feet on the ground, reality check, in it for the long haul, self.

Some things are defined well with complexity. I find energy is not because we don't want to get too heady about energy. We want to nourish our intuitive sense of our relation to energy. And we want this is be as simple a relation as possible. We cultivate good energy and then we let the energy do the talking. We let the simplicity that energy reveals (a sign we are listening) expose the complexity needed for our course of action. Then we can let our mins problem solve, not from fear, but from energy management. Escape, fanatsy, or retreat, are not long term practices for managing energy, as we should note.

A LITTLE SIDE NOTE

I spent several years in my teenage youth hanging out with various "new age" teachers and groups through my parents personal mid life crisis. It was very enlightening, in a way. As I matured, I began to notice a difference in how many Eastern practices view energy vs Western spiritual practices. A lot of Western practices seek to shock and awe people with a sense of amazement at the power of their personal energy. Eastern teachers (not all, but the good and honest ones) do not do such a thing. It is all very practical and based on long term, slow, and methodical practices. They see energy as nothing to get excited about, simply to understand. They understand that using and managing energy are the true arts, and that is challenging work, We don't want our energy to become one more drug that just lifts us up to leave us crashing back down, and that is what often happens if we should get too exctied about energy. To this, I prefer the Eastern approach, and quite frankly question the wisdom and true understanding of anybody who tries to get anyone overly excited about the ability to create energy. Inspired by energy? Yes. Absolutely. Excited? Hmmm. Feet on the ground, please.